The Hobbit has some of the most boring action scenes I've ever seen. Watching
them feels like watching a laundry machine. There's plenty of movement, but
not a lot going on. They're overly long, threat-free, gravity-defying, tone death,
and a bunch of other bad adjectives, but their biggest sin is that most of them
do nothing to advance the story. They remind me of bad musical numbers. You see,
even though musicals are as long as movies, the music itself takes up half the
running time, leaving you with less time for, you know, story and shit, so musicals
often run the risk of having a super-slim plot, because they can't
figure out a way to tell the story through the songs. Good musicals will
advance the plot and the characters in the songs themselves.
Here's a simple test. If you can remove a song from a musical without changing the
story, then the song isn't pulling its weight. To be clear, the song can still be
fun and catchy, while also being complete filler. This song was rightfully cut from
the original Lion King, and not just because it's fucking annoying. Zazu: "We haven't
paid the horn bills and the vultures have a hunch." But also because Zazu's lyrics
don't advance the plot at all. Now, if you were alive in 2013, then you've heard
this song. Part of the reason "Let It Go," is great is that you can't remove it
from the story. It's literally about Elsa's character development.
She begins afraid and alone, and by the end of the song, she's basically Beyonce.
Action scenes can be used in the same way. Characters can reveal something
about themselves, or learn the lesson the film has been trying to teach them. Buzz: This
is falling with style. So let's apply that same test to some of
the action scenes of The Hobbit. The Stone Giants. This is probably the most
random scene in the entire trilogy. As the dwarves are walking along, they watch
Rock'em Sock'em robots fighting each other.
Bilbo gets in danger here, and Thorin questions his worth, but that dynamic has
already been set up from the beginning of the movie. So the scene is just here
for spectacle and to look good in a trailer. The Orc Raid Laketown.
The orcs pointlessly raid Laketown at the end of The Desolation Of Smaug.
Literally nothing happens in this scene. The Legolas and Bolg fight is the definition
of filler. It's so pointless, that they don't even continue the plotline at the
beginning of the next movie. Fighting Smaug. But by far the biggest offender
here, apart from most of the third movie, is the conclusion of The Desolation of
Smaug. So here's a scene that exists solely because of the three movie
structure. Gotta end a blockbuster with everything going kablammo, so strap in
because it's time to watch the dwarves pointlessly wrestle a dragon for two
loads of laundry. But it's certainly going to feel odd watching part three
immediately after part two. I mean, you just watched a 20 minute action
scene with Smaug, and now you're going to watch another 20 minute action scene
with Smaug? I'm willing to bet that if they only made two movies like they
originally planned, then Smaug would have gone to blow-up Laketown the moment he
stopped talking with Bilbo. Instead, we get the most absurd scene of the trilogy.
Oh for fuck's sake. The movie goes through all this trouble to build up
Smaug as a threat, and then it renders him completely toothless and incompetent
in the next scene. Compare this to the opening of Five Armies. Here are all the
ways the plot or the characters are developed in this scene. One, Alfred is
betrayed and forced to fend for himself. Bard escapes from prison. Three, Smaug
is slain as a result of his own pride. And four, the master is killed for being a
greedy asshole. You can't have a movie without the scene, but you can totally
fast-forward through five minutes of Desolation without missing a thing. Now
maybe you're thinking that not every action scene needs to move the story
forward. Sometimes it's just fun to have a good fight in the movie. Well that's
true. But that's the other problem with the action scenes in The Hobbit. They
don't have tension. Tension is created when the
film makes us ask, "I wonder what will happen next?" To do that, you have to make
us feel the danger by giving us enough time to figure out what's happening, and
then letting our imaginations do the work. And if you have tension, you don't
even need to have elves doing backflips to make it exciting! Imagine that! Now,
probably the most filler-y scene in the original movies is the one with the
stairs when they're escaping from Moria. It doesn't add much to the story other
than: "Nobody tosses a dwarf." But it's an incredible lesson in cinematic
tension. Okay, so they're on these stairs when they come across a small gap. No
problem, right? Legolas jumps across. Then we hear, but don't see, the Balrog and the
tension creeps up. We get a reaction shot from Gandalf that tells us to be afraid.
A single arrow is fired at the Fellowship and misses. Now they have a
second problem. They have to jump the gap and goblins are firing at them. We get a
shot of arrows almost hitting the hobbits toes and a reaction shot of them
recoiling in fear. Boromir hastily grabs Merry and Pippin and jumps. Just as he
does so, the stairs where he was standing fall away. The gap is bigger, making the
problem more difficult, soon only Frodo and Aragorn remain, the two most
important characters. Even more of the staircase falls away, and we get a
vertical shot to show how far they'll fall. Keep in mind this was back when gravity
still posed a legitimate threat in Middle-earth.
Now the gap has become impossibly wide. Will Frodo and Aragorn have to turn back?
How are they gonna get out of this one? Then this happens: we hear the Balrog
stomping about, dislodging a boulder that hits the stairs behind them. Then the
stairs they're on now begin to wobble. To tally up the problems this
scene has built until this point, we've got one, the Balrog is coming, so they've
got to hurry. Two, there's a gap in the stairs that they have to navigate. Three,
the gap is getting bigger every time someone jumps. Four, the goblins are
getting pretty close at hitting someone with an arrow.
Five, the stairs are cut off behind them, so they can't go back. Six, the stairs are
beginning to fall in the wrong direction. Finally, Aragorn comes up with a plan.
They lean forward, using the falling staircase to make it over the gap.
The music swells the moment they are safe, dispelling the tension of the scene
in a terrific climax. As a final shot, we see the staircase smash into pieces and
fall into the abyss, further demonstrating the fate our heroes have
just escaped. In the hobbit, we get another escape from the goblins in Moria
scene, and it comes in almost the exact same point in the movie, so I feel that
it's fair to compare them. Only this time, Jackson managed to forget everything he
knows about cinematic tension and instead just cranks up the number of
things that happen by a factor of 10, and then plays it all super fast.
It starts with Dwalin pausing when some goblins are running directly at him.
He solves the problem instantly by picking up part of the railing and
swatting the goblins away. They drop the log and keep running. Now we're back to a
wide shot. Some of the characters are on the walkway up top, while others are on the
walkway down below. Which dwarf is on which walkway? Fuck you, doesn't matter,
because boom, next shot they're all running across the same bridge. Wilhelm scream!
Blam! 12 super quick shots of dwarves stabbing goblins. It's Thorin and then
Ballin then Bifur, I think, well ah fuck it. Please note that the ease with which
everyone can kill goblins, including the old dwarf, makes the threat
that they pose completely non-existent. Seeing as goblins are about as strong as...
and there's really only one comparison I can make here is there.
Buuuut, no time think about that because boom! We're into another set piece. Goblins
are swinging in on ropes. Thorin yells, "Cut the ropes!" They cut the ropes. Then there's a shot
of goblins getting all tangled up. I'm starting to see a pattern here. Each of
these little mini-sequences are all just three quick shots. The first one sets up
a problem. The second one is a character coming up with a solution. And the third
one is them executing on it. Never for a moment we get a shot showing our
characters scared about what's happening, or struggling for a solution like we do
in Fellowship. Buuuut no time to think about that because kablammo! Kili's blocking
arrows with his sword. It's set piece number three. Kili bashes through the
goblins with the ladder. Then that becomes a bridge. This is over in like a
second, and now we're... hold on a second, we're reuniting with other members of
the company? Who I guess were on the other side of the walkway? How? When? They
were all together a second ago. Who's with who? Hold on. Stop for a second. What
the fuck is happening? We're all swinging on a bridge, that's what. Some dwarves
jump off, then some goblins jump on, and for a second you're like, oh shit, now
they're stuck on there with the... oh wait... oh... they've escaped. More swooping crane
shots of scenery you'll never see again! Two more stabby shots! And then, Guam!
We're into the Bombur set piece! Stephen Hunter: He's a fat dwarf, basically. Don't beat around the bush.
Thanks Steve. Bombur trips and falls through two flights of wood. Some goblins
get launched in the air. Are we worried if Bomber's okay? Too bad
motherfucker! Cuz time to watch Thor stab a dude. And then Gandalf stab a
dude. Then Gandalf shoots a magic laser at a
rock, dislodging a boulder, and the music swells, but you're like what? Why is
the music being all triumphant? How is this any different from the shenanigans
Dwalin and Kili were pulling? And the battle isn't even over yet. There are
still nine more stabby shots before heading into the confrontation with the
Goblin King. Even as bad as it is at building tension, it's also terrible at
relieving what tension is there. Now it might surprise you, but even with all of
that going on, the scene from Journey is only ten seconds longer than the one
from Fellowship. Where Jackson used to take two and a half minutes to clearly
introduce elements of tension that made the stakes clear, he now took the same
time to have five different set pieces played back-to-back-to-back-to-back-to-
back along with a bunch of miscellaneous stabbing to boot.
Nothing in this scene builds on what came before, which means you could
reorder the entire sequence without changing the story at all. Scenes with
tension are memorable because they engage you on an emotional level. You
actually become worried about the well-being of the characters in the
scene. I think one of the reasons people aren't as connected to the dwarves as
they were the Fellowship is because they never seem like they're in any real
danger in the action scenes. They always escape without a scratch.
Most of the time, we barely know where any of the dwarves are, what dangers
they're facing, or if they're struggling to overcome those dangers or not. As a
result, the action scenes just wash over you, forgotten by the next load
laundry. Thank you for watching Part 2. Next up, I get all nitpicky. That's
right, I'm picking all the nits in Part 3, so make sure you subscribe to the Just
Write channel so you don't miss it when the video goes up tomorrow, but first
time for a little bonus stupidity. Dwalin: Goblin mercenaries.
no more than 100. Oh there's only a hundred of them? No problem right? Yeah
I'm really at the edge of my seat here.